Evening Sun
by Begonias
Summary: I pour out the rest of my drink over the plot of land by Bob's tombstone, like I'm celebrating the life that once was instead of wishing that I'd never spoken to him in the first place, and it just seems so ironic. If this drink never existed he wouldn't be here in the first place, and I wouldn't be here, wishing the roles were reversed.
1. Chapter 1

Short little two-shot. Please review. Title taken from a Strokes song.

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On a chilly November day of 1969 I find myself back in Tulsa and in the cemetery. That blasted cemetery. I never know why I keep going but there's just something that draws me there all the time. The part of me that still wants to hold onto the past. I guess. I've never been too good at guessing.

Dad had always told me that you should never guess things, should never assume, because it's vital to know all the facts of things and assuming things just "makes an ass out of you and me." Dad had always sat me on the couch and told me that and it happened more than once because he'd forget things when he was real drunk, but I'd just force a laugh at his joke every single time just to make him feel good.

He hadn't been a mean drunk. Life really would have been the pits then. It could have been so much worse for me, I guess. But that was before they stopped caring. Before I really starting drinking.

I had always been the one in my group who wasn't a mean drunk. I was the one who never really even liked it, which is why it's kind of ironic now. Bob...Bob, on the other hand, was different. His dad was a real brute and got even more wild when he was real messed up. He wanted Bob to be that way. He'd always told his son that drinking and holding your liquor was what made a boy a man. And Bob had taken that to heart.

He'd been able to get what he wanted all the time from his old man and his ma. They never wanted to say no to him. They encouraged his awful habits and depended solely on the belief that he was a model student, a leader, one bound for college. And maybe he would have been. But I guess we'd never be able to find out now. There I go with the guessing again. My dad would probably knock me up side the head if he heard me. Or most likely he'd laugh. Laugh so he wouldn't have to deal with emotion and talk about it like most people do. None of my family have ever wanted to talk to each other. I'm surprised they've lasted as long as they have.

_In Loving Memory of  
Bob Sheldon  
__Loving Son and Friend  
August 15, 1948 - September 16, 1966_

Three years. Jesus, he's been gone three years.

I take a swig of the beer bottle in my one hand and and I touch his gravestone. It's smooth under my fingertips and I finally throw the flowers I'd been holding in my other hand onto his grave, knowing they'll be frozen to the spot by the next time I visit him. It almost makes me laugh right then and there that I think of this process as "visiting Bob" when I'm actually just visiting a plot in the ground where his body and bones are laying inside a wooden casket. It would have made me laugh if I wasn't so close to crying.

Maybe if his old man said no. Every once in a while. No kid should get all the freedom in the world. If anything, it just taught Bob not to take no for an answer in any situation. Bob wouldn't have it when his girl Cherry Valance wanted to leave at the drive-in that night, wouldn't have it when those greasers left, because we just had to follow him. I admit that I wouldn't have it either. I wish I just left it alone. I wish I was the one who took the knife instead.

Our friendship was tumultuous at best.

I liked Bob. Loved him like a brother, even. He was one of the best friends a guy could have.

And then he started drinking. His goddamn folks didn't put a stop to it like any logical parent should have. I reckon they were worried that Bob would leave 'em behind. And he could have. He was eighteen.

I wish our lives were as ideal as the greasers think they are. I wish I could just be Mr. Super Soc with a cool car and leave it as that. Because if I was, I'd have parents who talked to me and stopped denying things. I wouldn't have a drinking problem and my best friend would still be alive. I wouldn't be living with the guilt of almost killing a little kid. It was malicious. It was malicious because I was just trying to please Bob. It never should have been like that. But there I was.

I take another gulp or two and relish in the burning the liquid gives me in the back of my throat. I'm not drunk yet but I wish I was. It's real funny; you'd think I'd never touch a drop of the stuff again seeing how it ruined Bob Sheldon's life, but what can I say. Grief does something to people. Drinking allows me to forget.

I go to a good community college just outside the city. That was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for my folks. They'd never said this to me before but they both wanted me to go to somewhere swank like Harvard or Stanford...but that wasn't for me anymore. They never said anything about it afterwards either but their silent disappointment was shown through their disowning me.

I'd wanted to run before. I remember telling that kid Ponyboy Curtis that once in my car. I'd wanted to punk out of that rumble but didn't want to be labelled as a chicken. We all cared so much for labels back then. It seems so long ago, but I still feel the same.

I pour out the rest of my drink over the plot of land by Bob's tombstone, like I'm celebrating the life that once was instead of wishing that I'd never spoken to him in the first place, and it just seems so ironic. So ironic that I can't pass up mentioning it. If this drink never existed he wouldn't be here in the first place, and I wouldn't be here, wishing the roles were reversed.

I leave without crying, though I feel close. I think about him a lot and what he once was but I don't visit his grave nearly as much as I should. Every time I do there's a different bouquet there, undoubtedly from his family, who probably come for him every other week or so. If I was here I wonder if my parents would do that for me. It's sad and touching at the same time and I have to blink repeatedly.

I hop into my car and sit for a second to let the alcohol in me settle so I can find where I want to go. And I drive a little bit until I'm on the other side of the cemetery.

Sometimes I go here after I visit Bob. Mostly when I'm boozed up. Mostly to say sorry, even though I guess it's too little, too late on my part. I'm walking up the line of graves looking for Johnny Cade when I see a tall, lanky figure already there.

Lo and behold, it's Ponyboy Curtis. I can tell before I really get a good look at him. He's a walking wraith, standing and staring in almost disbelief at the Cade kid's crude and bare headstone. Maybe after all these years he feels as lost as I do about this.

I accidentally step on a branch that snaps under the weight of me, and this causes him to look up at me and I look back at him, but I don't wave. His eyes are real bright green and intense, his hair is curlier and ungreased. He doesn't look rich enough to be a Soc but he just doesn't instantly strike me as a greaser anymore. Just a lost kid.

It feels like my feet are being forced to move over to him even though it seems like neither of us want to talk. But I go anyway. Maybe to say sorry. Even though it's too little, too late on my part.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Well, the hiatus I took lasted a bit longer than expected. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I'm not feeling this story, but I hope you enjoy. Also, it's supposed to be pretty vague. Please leave some feedback.

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He sneaks a glance at me under his shaggy brown hair, and for a second I think that this is how it's going to go: that he's going to just look back at the Cade kid's crude headstone and pretend that he didn't notice me at all. I can't exactly blame him. A few years ago, I would have done the same.

It's easy to pretend he ain't a kid, even though now it's all I see. Sure, he's quite a bit taller now, and he's got some stubble, but his eyes still got that innocent green hue to them. Suddenly I flash back to the first time I met him, when he was traumatized and bleached blond and I felt for him then and I feel for him now. Some part of my frozen heart warms up and cracks a little.

I walk up to him, and he stares at me like he's a deer caught in headlights. "Randy?" His voice cracks.

"Well, yeah," I tentatively say, though it sounds real stupid and this kid just don't deserve to have to face me after everything he's been through. But there's something about him. "In the flesh."

Surprisingly, a wolfish grin is what I get in return. It's like what I said was actually funny. "Like a ghost..." he mumbles dreamily, caught in his own world.

"What was that?" I say, though I heard him loud and clear.

"Ah, nothin'," he replies, and he shakes his head, almost like he can't believe what's happening. I can't really either.

I watch his mannerisms for a few seconds before I notice there's something off about him, in the way he's breaking out in a sweat despite the fact it's November and it's real fuckin' freezing, and that his eyes are real wide. Crazy wide, like someone who's surviving solely off caffeine and the pep pills my ma used to smuggle when she thought I wasn't looking. His pupils are big, blown up, and his bright green irises are a tiny sliver wrapped around the blackness.

"Oh, Jesus." It comes out before I can stop myself. "What are you on?"

He has the decency to look ashamed. But what he says next catches me off guard. "It's that obvious, huh?"

"Well, kid," and we both flinch when I say "kid", because it's such a blatant reminder of the past, and I don't think either of us like reminders of the past. "I hate to break it to you, but anyone who is blind, deaf, and dumb would be able to tell you're doped up on somethin'." I pause and think. My frozen, tiny heart cracked a little earlier, but now I think it's completely broke.

He won't look at me. His eyes roam everywhere: his best friend's tombstone, the broken twig that snapped under my foot, the truck driving down the road. But they don't roam to me. His eyes refuse to meet mine.

"My brothers don't know."

Exasperated, I shout, "Oh, well that's real fuckin' good for you! Jesus, Ponyboy, you're supposed to be the good one!" I'm drunk but what I'm saying has never made me feel so lucid.

I think he's wondering why I'm getting so worked up. I'm wondering that, too. I don't even feel anything when I'm getting into it with my parents, or when I'm getting it on with some trashy broad I found at a dive bar right outside town, so why is this any different?

"Why do you care so much?" If it was anyone else, I might have punched them in the face after saying this, but I can tell he doesn't mean it like that. He doesn't say it indignantly. It's more like he's genuinely curious.

"It's just that...you're not just some greaser scum, man. You were better. You were better than all of the rest of 'em." I'm shaking with a new rage, at an intensity I never could have imagined. But it feels real nice to feel something besides numbness and sadness again. I've been cut off and things have been bleak for so long I'm not used to this.

The calmness in his voice sharply contrasts the anger in mine. "They ain't so bad," he says. "And I ain't too sure what you're talkin' about. I'm just as much a greaser as any of 'em."

"That's not what I meant." The words are floating out of me, gently, but almost against my will, like a plastic bag that floats through the littered streets. "I can't stand seeing so much wasted potential. It kills me. It just fucking kills me."

"Wasted potential?" And for the first time, he almost looks hurt. And his unnaturally bright eyes finally seem to study my face.

"One of us, one of us, was supposed to get out of here. And do something. Go to college somewhere fancy, I don't know. And I'm not currently doin' that. I just thought that...maybe—maybe you could have..." I look away and feel myself getting strangely worked up. I break off before my voice cracks.

"...been different?" He pauses and then: "From you?" It hurts to him hear say that. But it's true. I always found small bits of hope in the fact that Pony would be able to get away from the tragedy that seems to follow him around everywhere he goes. I always thought that if I couldn't have the life I wanted, the life I needed, then he would. Lord knows he deserves it quite more than I do.

I can't say anything as I start to sway a little. I take out my flask again and take a swig before my brain can let me know it's a bad idea.

Despite the fact that he's obviously got his own little nasty habit, he scrutinizes me. "I guess we both got our vices," he says, and I wonder how he can be so goddamn knowing without even trying to be. "And while I appreciate the concern, Randy, I'm all set. I'm okay."

"No. You're not. You're not okay."

"I ain't?"

"You got that haunted look in your eye. It's like the first time we ever talked. I used to see you in the hallways, Ponyboy. You don't always look like that."

"Tranquilizer," he mutters.

Even though I hear him, in my drunken stupor I have to ask him to clarify.

"It's an anti-depressant. It's like a tranquilizer. Xanax, I think it's called. I don't take it real often. I was given some at a party a while back. I think I mighta taken a bit too many today. It helps me deal with...all this." With that, he points at Johnny's tombstone. "It makes schoolwork a bit hard to do, but it calms me down some."

"Schoolwork?" I focus on that because I can't stand to think of the other stuff.

"Yeah. University of Oklahoma. Full ride. I'm home for Thanksgiving break right now."

"Oh, thank god," I say, and I really mean it. I just assumed (and you know what we say about assuming)...I mean, he has that distant gleam in his eye that all the greasers get eventually and I worried, which is something I probably wouldn't do as much if I wasn't so buzzed. I'm jealous and envious of him and his achievements, but mostly that's over-shrouded with the bursting relief that burns in tandem with the whisky in my stomach.

I get a bitter taste in my mouth when I think about how much harder his life has been than mine and yet he's still so motivated, still keeping on, and still going to school when he's supposed to. It makes me angry with myself but it also inspires me. Maybe, eventually, I can cut the pity party I've been throwing for myself and stop drinking. I can start setting my sights on living the life I want to live.

Pony starts walking away from me, but not before eyeing me with pity. Which makes me feel so fucking sick. The poster child of tragic happenings looking at me like I'm in his place. I feel lower than the dirt under my fingernails.

I follow him regardless of this, because I think he wants me to. I realize at this split moment he's walking over to a slightly nicer stone, a dark grey silver. DALLAS WINSTON is carved on the front and I stare at it and think real long and hard even though I never cared for that one much.

"You know," I say, though I don't know too sure why, "I'm sorry."

"For?"

"Callin' your lot greaser scum."

He barely acknowledges this. "I've heard worse," he says, almost like he's speaking to himself. Ponyboy looks at Dallas's plot in disbelief again. He's like a wandering, lost child in a big grocery store and I just can't stand it. "You know, it's been such a long time and not a day goes by where I don't think of them. Weird, ain't it?"

"No, that's not weird." And I can't afford to push my voice past a whisper. "Bob is the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep."

He looks at me again. "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be," I almost spit, not meaning to direct my anger at him. I really don't want him of all people to feel bad about this. "It was his own stupid fault, that idiot." My eyes burn again.

We sit in silence for a while. "My, uh. My brother, you know, Sodapop?"

"Yeah, I know him." Even though he was an underclassmen to me, he was notorious with the ladies, whether they be Soc or greaser. And everyone remembers a crazy name like Sodapop with a crazy personality to match. "What about him?"

"He's in, uh. He's in 'Nam."

Christ. That's just what the kid needed. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, nope, it ain't your fault or nothin'." He seems to contemplate what he's about to say, then continues. "I guess..." and then he does a strange, ominous half-smile. "I guess that's why my eyes are so...what did you say earlier, haunted?"

"I'm sorry. You don't deserve that."

"Thanks." We go real quiet again. There just isn't much to say in this situation. Then later: "How have you been, Randy? Really?"

"Been better."

"Real specific."

"Go to a community college. Not what my folks wanted but it suits me, I think."

"That's good, Randy." He tries to smile. "I'm happy for you."

I can't stop myself before the dam breaks, my words coming out and going and going and going and I can't cut it out. "I bet everyone 'round here thinks it's real funny that Mr. Super Soc is now just a sad drunk. Ha-ha."

"Well, I ain't laughin'." His eyes seem to lose some of their unnatural shine. "You ain't just a Soc. You're a guy. Bein' rich don't keep you from goin' through rough times." Deep breath. He stares down at Dallas. "I wish I woulda realized that earlier."

I don't know if Pony is trying to console me or if he's just waxing philosophic to absolutely no one, but I take a strange comfort in his words anyway.

"Thanks. I mean it."

"Try to get back on your feet. You'll be okay." It's really not hard to tell he puts his heart and soul into his words; they're carefully crafted and personal.

I attempt a joke here, though it doesn't necessarily feel right. "Hey, you cut the pills and I'll cut the booze. Deal?"

"Deal," he says, and he shakes my hand with a sincerity I'm unfamiliar with. His overly thin body turns away from me briefly and he looks back at me right before saying, "Hey, uh, I gotta go. My brother wants me home for dinner soon. It, uh...it was good talkin' to you." He reaches out to shake my hand again, awkwardly this time. "Good luck, Randy."

"You too, Ponyboy." With that, his frame gets smaller and smaller and farther from my view.

Forgetting the deal, I take out my flask and chug as much as I can before the taste catches up to me. My blurry vision alternates between Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston and I feel sick but comfortably numb. Wondering how soon I'm gonna end up here right next to them, I realize something. I should have bought them flowers.


End file.
